Today we’d like to introduce you to Ba Crisp
Hi Ba, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My life began under challenging circumstances. I was a a former ward of the court and foster child. With my mother institutionalized for severe mental illness, I spent most of my childhood in the court system and was labeled unruly. Despite being considered not very smart by IQ standards and barely graduating from high school with a 2.0 GPA, my resilience and determination to buck labels defined my life’s journey.
At eighteen, I was abruptly released from the juvenile justice system, woefully unprepared for adult life. With next to zero skills for basic life tasks, I initially struggled as a victim of minimum wage. However, through a friend’s introduction, I entered the world of exotic dancing, earning as much money in one night than I’d earn in a week at my retail job. This allowed me to pursue an advanced education, starting at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, where I earned an Associate’s degree. By the way, I had to take FIVE remedial math courses just to get to Math 101. But I persevered.
Encouraged by an English professor, I applied to Ursuline College, earning scholarships and graduating Summa cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree. My academic journey continued at The George Washington University’s School of Political Management, where I graduated with honors as co-valedictorian. I later attended both the London School of Journalism and The University of Oxford, Exeter College to improve my writing skills.
Professional and Personal Achievements:
During my educational pursuits, I held various roles in a strip club, eventually co-owning a club. I forged the first Penthouse Club licensing deal in the world and sold the club to Larry Flynt’s people and Deja Vu consulting. In addition to my professional achievements, I discovered much about my family, many of whom were military veterans or worked in intelligence. I also married into a similar family, finding answers to many mysteries about my past, though some questions remain.
After selling the club I took great interest in learning about human trafficking, as I’d suffered similar abuse as a teenage runaway. Eventually, I worked alongside some exceptional people to create policies and programs that help victims. Similarly, I was a 2015 Director of Homeland Award nominee for meeting the mandates of the White House and Congress in the battle against human trafficking. I am considered a liaison between law enforcement and at-risk industries. I served as a vetted volunteer for a Sherriff’s Office in the Special Crimes Bureau as part of the anti-human trafficking unit.
Writing Journey:
My writing journey is marked by a commitment to exploring complex and challenging subjects. I tend to focus on psychology and social issues, such as sexual abuse and crime. My investigative approach seeks to uncover and address hidden truths, providing readers with well-founded insights and perspectives.
Notable Interests and Themes:
I’m deeply concerned with social justice issues, particularly institutional abuse and crime.
Investigative Approach: My writing often aims to uncover hidden truths, viable solutions, and new thinking.
Other Interests:
Spelunking, flying, travel, writing, research, and striving to create books that all six of my fans will read!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have not always had a smooth road. My mother never wanted children and hoped for a career. Living in a small rural town during an era where women were expected to marry directly out of high school, get pregnant, and stay at home to raise children, she withered. When she divorced the man I thought was my father, she became a pariah, unable to work, and fell more deeply into mental illness. She twice tried to take my life, and despite protests from other family members who offered to raise me, the court and its psychologists always encouraged “reunification.”
I always felt like more of a case number than a person. The foster care and juvenile justice systems are not designed for the “best interests of a child” and are certainly not pro-life environments. Social workers care, but they are overworked and egregiously underfunded. Social programs are the first to suffer budget cuts, likely because kids don’t bring in votes or money for elected officials. Due to childhood constraints and trauma, I served as my own wrecking crew as a young adult. I partied, drank, ran wild, and had more fun than ever, but this lifestyle was not sustainable. I’d like to think I transcended out of it, and this is mostly true, but the fact is that I aged and had children to love and protect.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
When I write, I use the name B.A. Crisp. I have authored five books, including a trilogy known as the Quanta Chronicles, which consists of Red Bird, X Point, and Emergent. This series is a psychological thriller following the journey of a young Samantha from foster care into adulthood. She discovers that her mother was a covert ops agent for the CIA, who was drugged and later institutionalized. Samantha’s coming-of-age story unfolds within a secret world of intelligence, steeped in intrigue and mystery, and takes her into supernatural dimensions that challenge her concepts of reality.
My non-fiction works, Loosen Your Lotus and How to Hug a Ghost, focus on self-discovery, finding peace, overcoming trauma, and embracing the past as a launchpad for life. These books explore themes of healing and personal growth.
If I had to identify what sets me apart, I’d say it’s my deep connection with others and the belief that our shared humanity brings us together more than our differences set us apart. I’ve been told I possess a gift for strategic intelligence. Near-death experiences have granted me an ability to sense and understand the energies, intentions, and suffering of others, which I hope allows me to help some of them.
Synchronicities frequently occur in my life, reinforcing my belief that we have the power to heal ourselves and others. I believe our DNA is an entangled ladder of sentience and the supernatural, or science and the sacred, endowing us from birth with extraordinary potential.
What does success mean to you?
Finding peace and the ability to inter-be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bacrisp.com
- Instagram: @bacrispwrites
- Facebook: BA Crisp, Author
- Twitter: @BACrispWrites
